You Are the Apple of My Eye
Movies watched in 2024
You Are the Apple of My Eye (2018, Japan)
Director: Yasuo Hasegawa
Writers: Kenzaburo Iida & Shiori Yamazuki (based on the movie by Giddens Ko)
Mini-review:
I've seen many movies like this one, but it was still pretty fun. I enjoyed a lot of the recurring gags, and most of the characters were likable too, even if they weren't as fleshed out as they could have been. I didn't really get the reasoning behind all the drama that happens in the second half, and the movie lost steam when it started focusing on that. Still, Yuki Yamada's charming and committed performance carries the movie through all its ups and downs. I can't compare this version of You Are the Apple of My Eye with the original one, as I haven't seen it, but I do think Yamada makes this one worth watching.
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Welcome the girls of the growth academy as temporary muses.
Left to right Akira Mitzuani,Naomi Yamazaki,Alice Nikimaru,Aida Kodama,Shiori Matsumoto,Honoka Inoue.
I’ll make stats later.
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Oshi No Ko #1 - Mother and Childern
Screenplay: Jin Tanaka
Storyboard: Daisuke Hiramaki, Saori Tachibana, Asami Nakatani
Episode Director: Daisuke Hiramaki, Saori Tachibana, Asami Nakatani, Ryota Ito, Chengmin Jin
Chief Animation Director: Kanna Hirayama
Animation Director: Kanna Hirayama, Shun Sawai, Masaaki Yamano, Takeshi Osame, Maho Yoshikawa, Shuuta Sato, Manato Onishi, Tomoko Uno, Tomoya Atsumi, Asami Hayakawa, TOMATO, Miki Matsumoto, Honoka Yokoyama, Honoka Hada
To be honest, I didn't really know what to expect from the show. I am not a big fan of idol culture in general, and I typically find it quite toxic based on what I've seen. Also, I had no knowledge of the plot of this series at all aside from that aspect. Plus, completely unrelated to my thoughts on idols, the sheer size of the first episode was quite intimidating for me. It's not extremely hard to find time for a 20-minute episode and write about it, yet I've already missed many episodes this season. Will I have time to watch a show like this and still have time to write about it? With all those thoughts floating around in my head, I decided to watch it.
And what are my thoughts? I actually loved it. It's definitely floating near the top of the season for me and I can say that as the first episode was equivalent to 4 episodes of most other shows.
Somehow, I managed to steer clear of most of the trailers, so this is my real first time seeing the character designs of Hirayama Kanna. Honestly, they are very pretty. I'm not familiar with the manga, but the faces of the characters are extremely expressive, and the eyes are gorgeous and very unique. There are literal stars in some of the character's eyes that on paper feel ridiculous but it's extremely charming. The idols they want you to fawn over, like Ai, look irresistible in terms of design.
The story itself is very hard to describe without just spoiling it in its entirety, but I think the story functions well due to the self-awareness of the toxicity that lies within the idol industry. Unlike shows like Heroines Run the Show, they don't try to convince us to like this industry or applaud the toxicity within idol culture.
There are a lot of lies, there are toxic fans, and people you like as idols might be forced to upkeep appearances, or they might not be telling their fans anything. How should fans react to lies? The show doesn't seem to tell us how; it simply shows how people might react to it. And I do appreciate that respect for the viewer's own mindset on idol culture.
The show is about two idol fans who are reincarnated as babies to the idol they adored. As babies, they are named Ruby and Aquamarine.
Is it weird? It's a bit weird, but this whole plot point was definitely the reason the show was 90 minutes for its first episode. It's a lot of things to set up, including introducing idol culture to those unfamiliar, introducing our characters in their past lives and their lives as babies, Ai's idol path, and Ruby and Aqua's own path. And I found it all very entertaining and became more engaged in the story as I watched. The hype for this show is very large, and at first, I wasn't completely buying it as it wasn't even really available to watch till yesterday. Yet, it already had a rating on MAL from the theatrical release in Japan, but I'm sold. So far this season, my top shows have been "Heavenly Delusion," "The Ancient Magus' Bride," "Skip and Loafers" and this is right up there with them. The one hour and thirty minutes never felt too long, and believe me, I watched this at a very inconvenient time for me. Right till the end the comedy hit me, the wholesome scenes hit me, and the emotional ones hit me. I had a great time.
We don't know who directed what part, as this is a movie-length production and there are multiple episode directors listed here, but the direction/storyboard took a noticeable improvement and I really enjoyed it. I'll leave off with some images from the 2nd half of the episode. There were some shots I wanted to include, but those ones are spoilers even at a glance.
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